Anyone understand why Johnson is so far ahead in the polls? ( 2)

*Maybee’, what I do with anything like that (too small to read) on my iPad, is click on it (just touch it) so that the options come up, and add to photos, where I can read it in a much larger format.

Hetty58 I share your disappointment in the great British voting public.
What does it take to get all those non-voters to turn out and vote? When will they learn that apathy is just like a positive vote for the party you don’t like.
On our local area FB page, a number of conversations went something like this:
-OMG we’ve got a b****y Tory council again.
-Yes!????I don’t know why I bother to vote.
-Well I didn’t. I wasn’t going to get soaked for nothing . . .
Greneyedgirl I found your comment rude, but quite perceptive.
I wonder if the electorate in Wales would be equally impressed if they were told they’d vote for a leek if it sported a red rosette?

PippaZ

Conservative voters should be forced to read the Timeline of Failure, just as Germans were forced to visit the death camps to understand what the had facilitated.

Some on here should be forced to work for a week in the sweat shops of places like Leicester. That utopia with a Labour Mayor, Labour MPs, and a Labour council.

They all know what's happening there.

I have never voted Tory by the way. I voted Green for the council and spoilt my ballot if the only option was Con, Lab, or Lib.

Yes, I am sure this is sometimes the case lemon but in my experience Tory voters would vote for a lump of lard here as long as a candidate sported a blue rosette. Conservatism is absorbed with mother’s milk. This time the leader of the council has lost his seat, in a hitherto safe area.

Greeneyedgirl

I live in a true blue and Brexit voting shire county, but the Tories lost 5 seats on the county council, with gains for Labour and Lib Dems,. The rural heartlands remain Tory, but their support is definitely on the wane in the county town wards here. Gives me hope for the future.

Why?
As a few other posters have pointed out, these elections have all shown that voters are giving political parties a kicking for all sorts of reasons, but in England overall, the Conservatives have returned almost half as many again as Labour councillors.
Local elections are useful as indicators as to how local people feel, but many times return a very popular candidate ( no matter which party) as in Henley where a popular Independent won.

I'm just disappointed, as always, with the great British voting public.

I'm truly astounded that they'd still vote Conservative, even now, after the horrific failure to react quickly enough to save lives in the pandemic.

After all the too little, too late, half hearted responses - they vote for more of the same. Incredible!

Well yes in the way that there are a number of reasons for the red wall to vote Tory, it doesnt change the result.

Also, for further clarification... Oxfordshire as a whole was furious about the results of Brexit, which has resulted in more Labour and Lib Dem councillors, far far more than in previous years.

Mamie

Chipping Norton has gone to Labour. ?

Just for clarification purposes, Chipping Norton has elected a Labour councillor to sit on the Oxfordshire County Council.
It’s a small place full of the ‘Metropolitan Elite’ who have moved from London to lovely houses there, and Remainers who are furious about Brexit.?

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Dinahmo

I expect a few of you are aware of "Lead by Donkeys" . They have produced a time line of failure (on the part of Johnson) which makes for interesting reading. For anyone interested, here's the web address timeline-of-failure.com

I'm currently reading the book by the two Times journalists 'Failure of the State' which examines the origins of the pandemic's coronavirus and details how the government coped with it in the UK. It doesn't make comfortable reading, though, to be honest, much of it was known at the time even though hotly denied by tory supporters on here

Elderly ladies insisting on every other sentence containing the word woke (a word from the black community) as an insult is such a grey and grizzled look in every way I can see. Really, really showing your age ladies.

MaizieD

MayBee70

varian

Then - and this is the masterstroke, bribe them to vote Tory by saying that only if their local representatives are Tory will they ever again get their fair share of spending.

Can you post the email saying that? I can’t do stuff like that on my iPad. It was a real eye opener.

Is this any use, MayBee?

Or did someone post an actual email saying something similar?

Yes. That’s the one. Thanks.

What everyone seems to be ignoring, or forgetting about, is that it is pretty certain that once the pandemic recedes Sunak will be cutting state funding like mad to supposedly shrink the deficit built up over the past 18 months. So, while there may be some money put into some areas the country over all will suffer.

The idea that there is going to be a post pandemic boom is, IMO, nuts. There may be a temporary one, but there will be loads of businesses that haven't made it, with the resultant job losses and, although some people have saved during the pandemic, there are people who lost their income, or were on furlough, who may be owing a load of money for rent, or wanting to build a nest egg against possible further 'national emergencies'.

I just don't think we're going to get the government spending bonanza that people seem to be expecting.

Then there is the Brexit effect....

I expect a few of you are aware of "Lead by Donkeys" . They have produced a time line of failure (on the part of Johnson) which makes for interesting reading. For anyone interested, here's the web address timeline-of-failure.com

MayBee70

varian

Then - and this is the masterstroke, bribe them to vote Tory by saying that only if their local representatives are Tory will they ever again get their fair share of spending.

Can you post the email saying that? I can’t do stuff like that on my iPad. It was a real eye opener.

Is this any use, MayBee?

Or did someone post an actual email saying something similar?

Every party and every government indulges in pork-barrel politics if they can, surely that is what manifesto promises are all about and all but a saintly few vote for the party we feel will do the best for us and those groups we care about.

They would be insane to do anything else.

suziewoozie

Dinahmo

PS.Arguing wouldn't make any difference s you can see on here.

No but the BBC could have corrected what they said afterwards. Or does anything go now as long as it’s pro Tory?

I've only watched the clip that was posted, not the whole program, but I got the impression that the interviewer was just trying to get the speaker to keep talking, in a sort of "oh really, what else?" kind of way. Has anybody seen the follow up discussion?

It wouldn’t would it? All power to Hartlepool if they can persuade the government to spend money in their town by voting for them.

But I think the issue is that we appear to have a government who rather than acting in the national interest and spending money where it is most needed they are acting in their own interest and spending money where they think it would most profitably bring votes.

Oh I agree varian. It’s the Tories selling votes not the proper fault for bring bought.

And turning Hartlepool into a showcase town would be a bad thing because?

Many constituencies with a newly elected Conservative MP have seen their areas benefit from money from initiatives like the Towns Fund. This has seen the Conservatives accused of pork-barrel politics since analysis shows that Conservative‐held areas (and in particular marginal Conservative‐held areas) are more likely to receive funding from this pot. But, rightly or wrongly, when voters are seeing areas with a Conservative MP are getting funding, it is understandable that they too may be tempted to vote Tory.

theconversation.com/hartlepool-by-election-inside-the-new-northern-conservatism-160393

Dinahmo

PS.Arguing wouldn't make any difference s you can see on here.

No but the BBC could have corrected what they said afterwards. Or does anything go now as long as it’s pro Tory?

Pork barrel politics

www.nationalworld.com/news/politics/hartlepool-by-election-2021-its-not-politics-its-a-protection-racket-labours-paul-williams-on-pork-barrel-politics-and-the-conservatives-appeal-3225029

Dinahmo

I think that the BBC is being blamed rather too much. People complain when the journalists disagree with the public and now (as above) when they don't. The political programmes all have fact checkers - at least the ones that I watch do.

With regard to CNN - they are not publicly funded. The BBC is and sadly has to deal with a Tory government constantly wanting to reduce its funding.

All the BBC had to say was the hospital and courts are paid for by the govt - or not broadcast it or add a piece to camera afterwards - and not nod like a demented dog.